Sweet Dreams
by mojoco
Summary: One-part sequel to "Bad Dream."


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Sweet Dreams

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~Sequel to "Bad Dream"~

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Syd and Vaughn are not mine, they belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, etc.

Synopsis: If you've read "Bad Dream," you know the drill-- Syd and Vaughn have never been spies, they're a happy little married couple. This takes place a few years down the road from "Bad Dream."

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She's in the kitchen when he gets home from work, chopping vegetables for a salad while the lasagna warms in the oven. Their children are with her-- Jack, four years old, sits at the kitchen table with a coloring book and crayons, while Emily, not yet a year, babbles a steady stream of baby talk from the confines of her playpen. When the door closes behind Michael, Jack runs to greet him.

"Daddy!"

"Hey, buddy," Michael says with a smile. "How was preschool?"

"It was good, Dad." The boy's green eyes-- his daddy's eyes-- light up. "I finger painted!"

"Did you?"

"Yep," Jack says, his grin widening. "The picture's up in my room."

"Go get it and show it to me."

"Okay."

Jack runs out of the room, and Michael approaches his wife, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Hey."

"Hi." She turns away from her dinner preparations and wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him soundly.

"How was your luncheon?" he murmurs, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.

"It was wonderful, darling, I'll tell you all about it later," she promises. A woman from the Life section of the paper approached her about coming over to photograph the house; she's sure Michael will love the idea. He is a partner at one of the most prestigious law firms in the city, and image is an important part of the job.

"Did Emily enjoy herself?" he asks, turning to scoop up their little girl. "How are you, princess? Were you good for Mommy today?"

"She was an angel," Sydney sighs, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Everyone loved her."

"Of course they did," he says, smiling at his daughter as he returns her to her playpen. "How could they not?"

"What do you think, Michael?" she asks, continuing to gaze at Emily. "If we have another baby, do you think there's any chance he or she will be as sweet as her?" It had only been that morning that he'd mentioned having a third child; he'd said it casually, almost as if he were joking, but Sydney knew it would make him so happy. She's not exactly opposed to the idea, herself; she adores both of the children they already have and can't imagine that she'd love a third any less.

"With you for a mommy," Michael says sweetly. "How could he or she not be?" He takes her lips with his again, and when they part, she burrows against his chest, feeling so safe, so protected. So loved.

Just like she did in the last of the dreams-- those terrible, wonderful dreams where she was a double agent, working to take down a rogue spy operation called SD-6. She hasn't had one of the dreams for more than four years, and now that she thinks about it, the life she saw herself living in her dreams was neither terrible nor wonderful. It was just different. Everything had been more complicated. In her real life, everything and everyone was pretty much just as they seemed.

Her mother, for example, really had died in a car accident when Sydney was six years old. There was no assignment from the KGB, no deception. Just a simple case of icy roads and careless driving.

There really was a Credit Dauphine building downtown, and while Sydney had worked their during college, she was fairly sure there was no organized crime going on down in some secret subbasement.

And while it was certainly possible that a man named Danny Hecht existed, Sydney had never known him, and as far as she knew, he was not dead. She had met Michael four years earlier in real life than she had in her dreams, at the dinner party of a mutual friend-- she guessed not spending her free time as a spy had given her a chance to have more of a social life. They had dated for a year before he'd proposed, and as the fairy tales liked to say, they'd lived happily ever after.

But of course, the story rarely ends, though the one in Sydney's dreams had. In the last one, she and the CIA had succeeded in taking down SD-6, and she had run into Michael's arms, and when she had woken up, she had known what she had been trying to find out in her dreams.

Whether Michael would love her no matter what.

And in that moment, she'd known that yes, yes, yes he would. She tries so hard to be the perfect wife and mother, but the truth is, while he appreciates her efforts, they aren't the reason he loves her. He loves her for who she is, not what she does. That wouldn't change whether she was an international spy or if she was something else, something different.

She knows that now. And when she closes her eyes, she has only sweet dreams.


End file.
